By now most have heard that the Supreme Court in a split decision sided with Hobby Lobby’s claim that they shouldn’t have to cover in employer insurance benefits forms of birth control that violate the religious conscience of the owners of the corporation.  And immediately that decision was evaluated according to a variety of filters.  Is it good news or bad news for women’s reproductive health?  If you support Obama care, was it a setback?  If you oppose Obama care was it as a victory?  No doubt a “pro-life” or “pro-choice” filter could be used to decide whose cause was helped and whose was hurt.

I want to suggest a different filter.  It really doesn’t depend on whether you think the viewpoints of the owners of Hobby Lobby are right or wrong when it comes to various forms of birth control.  Had the court found against Hobby Lobby (and the other plaintiff in the case) it would have in effect said, “The only place freedom of religion exists is between your ears.”  The moment you begin to do something about your faith in public life, that action enjoys no governmental respect.  A faith that is only allowed to exist in our head isn’t much of a faith at all.  It’s inconsequential.

In our country the perspectives of faith and religion are a driving force for everything from the relief of poverty, immigration reform, ecological concerns, to sanctity of life issues.  That doesn’t make everything done in the name of religion defensible.  But a ruling that actions taken because of religious conscience enjoy no unique respect by government would have had a chilling effect far beyond the the narrow issue in the headlines today.

Religion isn’t free if you can’t practice it.  That’s why this case matters and why people who live by faith should be glad for the decision, whether we agree with the owners of Hobby Lobby, or not.

 

 

 

 

I’ve never been to Omaha.  But there’s an old, fold-out map in my car which says it exists.

You’d think I was crazy if I was an Omaha denier.  After all it’s on the map.  There are often pale people who claim to be from Omaha. They can even describe the place.  A reasonable person would expect me to take their word for it even if I don’t have any experience of it.

This seems to me to be the great possibility for entertaining faith in God. Christian faith, at least, has a 2000 year old fold-out map based on the reports of many people who claim to have seen the place.  As with any map, there is more than one route, and you could argue some roads are better than the others. Yet in the end there is widespread agreement – the place exists.

Still there’s a problem. Shouldn’t God at least get the benefit of the doubt, based on the number of people who say they’ve been there?  And isn’t reasonable, should I ever get interested in locating God, I would at least consult somebody’s map?  And yet when it comes to God isn’t it amazing how many folks say no, if they can’t find God on their own terms there must be no God to be found?

Of course their problem points out the problem of settling for a faith that never gets beyond being satisifed with reading somebody else’s map.  I can live happily enough trusting other people’s reports about their trip to Omaha.  God it seems is always unsatisfying – and rarely more than a point of debate – unless we visit for ourselves.

I don’t mind peddling Christian maps to a curious world.  But it’s no substitute for taking the trip yourself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday night they were everywhere.  I took the dog out for the last trip of the night, and the yard was a dark field of blinking yellow lights. I’ve seen fireflies before, but not like this in years.  I think it was the spontaneity that got me, the beautiful unpredictability of light where none had been expected.

I don’t know where the fireflies had been.  Too many dried out, drought -stricken summers, too much bug killer, I don’t know.  But it did my heart good to see something so unscripted, so beyond my control. Whatever I could have planned wouldn’t have been half as wonderful.

By shear coincidence Sunday was Pentecost, that day when we remember the unplanned arrival of the fiery presence of God in the church.  The hope of the Christian faith is a God who can do more than we hope or expect.  We’re counting on fireflies, the light of God showing up in people from whom we would not expect it in places where we would not plan to find it.  And at least for one night it seemed to be the most reasonable sort of hope in all the world.

 

So I’m sitting here trying to master becoming a multi-platform social media user.  I’ll eventually figure it out.  I am reminded though of something I learned in a “contemporary” communications class years ago:  the depth of our message is inversely related to the distance it travels.  The further I send it, the thinner it gets.

The thickest message is called “ritual”- it doesn’t travel much further than the room where it happens.  Rituals are heard, seen, touched, and even smelled.  Like we say, “You had to be there.”

I don’t remember the name for the thinnest messages.  But think of the ancient telegraph or the modern tweet.  Only a few characters allowed to get the point across.  You can tweet the remotest corner of the world in a matter of minutes.

I’m not saying one is good and one is bad.  Each have their place.  I do worry though in our digital times that “thin is in”, and we mistake reach for depth.  Perhaps the screen creates a false sense of intimacy, and less community than we hope. There’s still a need to be with people in ways that are low tech and high touch.  Maybe a church is a good place to find it.

The traveling part of my sabbatical leave is long over, but there have been some great opportunities to share what I learned.  We just finished a preaching series at Westminster called Let’s Talk Evangelism: Wisdom From the Celtic Way.  I also led a Wednesday night class about the spiritual practices of the Celtic Saints from Ireland, Scotland, and Wales and how to adapt them for our time.

The sabbatical also included some wonderful time at Emerald Isle North Carolina enjoying the beauty of the beach.  No sabbatical leave is finally over without a good party, so why not make it a beach party?  On Sunday, November 3rd at Westminster we’ll be having a Low Country Boil and Beach Music Celebration to mark both the end of my sabbatical and  Celebration Sunday when we bring our commitments for supporting the work of the church in the coming year. 

If you regularly attend Westminster I hope you’ll come to the “Boil” immediately following the 11:15 service that day.  Come get some sand in your shoes! You can sign up at worship this Sunday, or email the office at suzannelunsford@wpcsnellville.org.  We need a good count so be sure to sign up right away.

 

 

 

It’s a good sign if they don’t change the locks while you’re away.  I came back to Westminster on Tuesday, to begin life post-sabbatical.   I’ll preach this Sunday and spend most of the week picking up where I left off back in May.

The past few weeks have been eventful with Tricia’s accident.  Thanks to the many who have brought food by the house and been so supportive while our family adjusts to a different routine for some weeks to come.

I had hoped to get further on some writing projects during sabbatical than I did but that will come.  However I did get my feet wet thanks to the writer’s seminar I took at the University of Iowa.  Here’s a creative short piece I was prompted to write by our instructor.  It reflects a bit on our time spent in Ireland.

Ruins

They crumble now, smoothed by rain, taunted by the wind, the hands that built them one carved stone at a time nothing but dust. Still they stand, glassless windows framing skies hovering over roofless sanctuaries. So you have to close your eyes and listen for the grumbling abbots, burping monks, and Latin Psalms chanted at midnight echoing across rock decade after decade, holy sounds only enhanced by unyielding surfaces. 

This was a foundry, bending iron wills, hardening short lives, for journeys no sane tourist would ever take. These people were crazy hunched over their vellum, scratching out peacock colored texts that most could never read. God they were crazy standing in cold water to cancel sins that I list as accomplishments. They were nuts seeing divinity in barbarians who cut them down like hay before the blade. 

It is ghostly serene now, minus the white-hot heat that burned cell to cell. Still they stand, monuments to absurd lives, markers of the extreme, compass points for those who choose to get close to the edge.  So I run my hand over crumbling rock, and I listen.

 

 

Things change fast.  Just a little while after making my last post on July 13 at Emerald Isle, NC we received word that our daughter had been injured in serious auto  mobile accident near our home in Georgia.  We immediately returned home to care for her. She has some serious ankle injuries but with rehab and some time to heal we anticipate a good recovery.

Thanks for the many prayers and expressions of concern from our church, family, and friends. Your support means a great deal. Our daughter Tricia will be updating folks from time to time on the progress of her recovery.

Needless to say this had caused my sabbatical leave to take an unexpected turn .  While we are grateful for God’s mercy, we are also struggling how to make sense of it all.  May plan is to return to my congregation the week of August 5th and take up the reins once again.  Your prayers during this last week are greatly appreciated.

It’s a rainy day at the beach, and that’s a good thing.  I’ve been thinking some today of the past couple of months and the little pieces of insight, conviction, rest, and rejoicing that have come my way.  In particular I’ve been reading the book a number of you are reading with me, The Celtic Way of Evangelism, and letting it rub against the experiences I’ve been fortunate to have.

The picture in the post is a sundial (perhaps 6th century) on west coast of Ireland that stands on the grounds of what was once the Kilmalkedar monastery.  It divides the day into times of common prayer, every three hours.  Three times a day the monks would cease from their business and gather for prayer, times literally carved in stone.

Prayer was the constant for these ancient saints.  It structured their day, in was their common bond, and it was from a praying community that most would eventually be sent to extend the faith against incredible odds.  It didn’t matter whether they felt like praying.  They prayed, as if like breathing itself, there was no other option.

I’m wondering about that kind of humble constancy which forms the backbone of such a resilient life. What does that look like for me? How does prayer become more than the bookends to a day that is lived as if it is all up to me?